Again... repeated over and over and over.... but agree with chris. I feel that even as a casual, having things 'easy' is actually LESS fun for the casual player. They lose out more then they gain and it causes an MMo to be far quicker to dry out as there is little incentive to put work. Players don't feel the need to get people and they feel no real achievement in accomplishing stuff and as such they quickly leave the game.
The current trend is harmful both to casual and hardcore players. MMos are much weaker then they use to be in terms of their staying power, and I feel besides the over-saturation, the over simplification has hurt it.
This.
While I don't feel that anything in the way of corpse runs, losing 5 levels, and FFA looting are the answer either. Im glad all of those kinds of things are gone.
But those are not difficulty, those are inconveniences.
Challenge comes in the form of content and progression, nowhere else. I really do not have any brilliant ideas about exactly how to go about increasing the difficulty, but that I leave up to the developers.
Progression has become such a joke in modern mmos. Even the game im subscribed to and was even in it's broken 1.0 state, ffxiv, has been simplified to the point where anyone can excel. There are a lot of people talking on these forums about how theyre bored already, and the game is brand new. This problem as I see it is two-fold; 1 being that the game is new, and simply doesn't have the content to go hand in hand with my number 2 point, which is the fact that progression is so blazing fast.
FFXI may have been a very dated game, and like any game it had it's share of problems....but I can't stress enough how much I miss the sense of accomplishment in a level-up because it wasn't handed to me in an hour. There are other things, such content locking through missions and their accomplishments, and Rare/Exclusive items that were extremely hard/annoying to get but were useful across a myriad of jobs....but the biggest one is the progression speed to me.
Btw, I don't personally see content locking as a bad thing at all. It provides the player with something to work for, a goal to achieve. You want to go to X zone because it drops Y piece of gear? Gotta do Z first. I use ffxi as an example because it's the game I played the most, but I still remember how long and hard I had to try to get access to areas like Sky, Sea, etc. And when I could finally run those endgame bosses with my Linkshell I actually felt a sense of accomplishment. Not only Did I have to meet a reqwuirement in the form of levels, but I also had a goal to achieve in clearing content.
-The only sure thing about the future is uncertainty
Yea all mmo´s on the marked are made for kids and have been the last 5 - 7 years. And its only getting more and more like that, ofc its becuse off the money they wanner get to all, from before the kid games it was all about the game.
There is room for all levels of difficulty and challenge. It is a mistake to make a game too narrow in scope. Different games can mean different things to people at different times. Over the spans of years people can and do change between casual, regular and hardcore. People can also change in skill level. In my own experience there has been times in the past 10 years when my skill, ambition and dedication has drastically altered for better or worse. The games that I have been most active in are the ones which have the room to grow.
Having modes like very easy, easy, medium, normal, hard, and very hard have been included in all game genres since the very beggining and for good reason. Sometimes it is good to be able to just experience the content with as little effort as possible, and sometimes it is good to have the kind of challenges which can grind even the most hardcore into dust and it does not always have to be the same. There are soo many good games out that it is simply impossible to climb every mountain you want to and it is something that will only get worse.
If you think MMO's have gotten too easy then you need to play more games. Try staying active in 3-20 different games and there will be no end to the possible ways to find or create challenge.
Originally posted by ArzhAngel Yea all mmo´s on the marked are made for kids and have been the last 5 - 7 years. And its only getting more and more like that, ofc its becuse off the money they wanner get to all, from before the kid games it was all about the game.
Not all.
Nothing wrong with easy if that's what the player wants but we should also have hard mode which most devs are actually forgetting. This leads to most mmo's having a short live span, you would think these devs would have caught on by now.
Give us server choices within the same game, different rule sets is all it takes.
Choice is always good.
I'm running through Dark Souls for the third time and although i know what to do somethings are still pretty hard. I've been trying to get to that third bonfire in Anor Londo for the last hour but that freaking black knight want put his bow away and follow me so can get pass that last ledge.
I think that its less about them being made easy and more that we have gotten so much practice at these games that we have become good at them. the rule is simple, 10,000 hours of anything and you will become good at it. Now how many people on MMORPG.com feel that they have played 10,000 hours of mmo's combined. i mean i know damn well im in the catagory.
Because i can. I'm Hopeful For Every Game, Until the Fan Boys Attack My Games. Then the Knives Come Out. Logic every gamers worst enemy.
Originally posted by Rayshe I think that its less about them being made easy and more that we have gotten so much practice at these games that we have become good at them. the rule is simple, 10,000 hours of anything and you will become good at it. Now how many people on MMORPG.com feel that they have played 10,000 hours of mmo's combined. i mean i know damn well im in the catagory.
Originally posted by Rayshe I think that its less about them being made easy and more that we have gotten so much practice at these games that we have become good at them. the rule is simple, 10,000 hours of anything and you will become good at it. Now how many people on MMORPG.com feel that they have played 10,000 hours of mmo's combined. i mean i know damn well im in the catagory.
Since WoW became popular and basically eliminated the death penalty, devs have been forced to dumb down the games in order to cater to the majority of gamers which demand instant gratification and having the game handed to them on a silver platter. Challenge has been something long lost in MMO's. When I say challenge, I dont mean having to do a raid over, I mean losing exp and items. A REAL penalty. But if that happened again, the tears would drown humanity.
I think there is a stigma with the MMO community since the EQ days and the WOW days.
The stigma of When gaming comes first and daily responsibilities comes second. Developers are afraid that the days when People game everyday, losing sleep and outdoor activities would occur again. So they make their games easy to log in, and easy to log out. There is no drive to stay and play, no responsibilities to continue living in their virtual world that they created.
There are other problems as well, one of such is the attention span of their customer base. Anything that takes longer than 10 minutes is a Grind. Grinding is now killing the same monster more than 5 times, walking the same path more than twice. If it takes me more than 1 session of gaming to get 10 levels regardless of where I am is now also a grind.
people nowadays doesn't want to be addicted to their games, they want something like smoking, which they believe they can quite whenever they want. An illusion of that they are in control of their addiction.
Its only When Gamers finally face their realities and see that MMORPG is a long term investment of their time, that's the only time when MMORPG will have level gains that means something. In game death that means something, and have proper Risk vs Death rewards.
MMORPG also have to start facing the facts that Players that play 20 hours a day will advance and be better than players that plays 5 hours a day. Or atleast they should.
Atleast that is my take on the current status of MMO becoming too easy .
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
I think this is why I have hope for Wildstar. The concept is easy enough for anyone (don't stand in this red bad stuff), but they can go about making fights in a myriad of different ways that still take quick reaction time and skill. To me, that is how a game should be. A simple concept for mechanics but still takes reaction and skill to get through. That way players of all skill levels can understand it and attempt it but won't all succeed.
CASUAL should NOT mean EASY! Just because you casually play a game does not mean it should be easy .. Fast to do some content? Sure. Challenging? SHOULD BE..
Why even play a game if you don't read the story and brainlessly collect 100 items to return back for a reward that every other person in the game has? Why would you want every zone easily accessible so that no one can claim to be a hero, where you have something to look forward to or finally be the one that reaches the top? You should be scared to die or there's no thrill.
Best comparison ever: Game of thrones.. Yes you WANT Joffrey to die (Difficulty), but in reality... do you really want him to, when he brings so much content to the show?
An alternate way to explain this with One name: EverQuest.
That is all.
--------------------------- Former EQ1 Rallos Zek (PvP) Ascendant Chronei Immortal of Rallos Zek (Now @ Prexus)
Another HUGE mistake made by MMO's of late and not mentioned in the panel is PVP. MMO's before the days of PVE/PVP Mix were just PVE's. You had a ton of diversity in the classes. Each class was very different. Tanks were good tanks but did crap for DPS. Wizards did a TON of damage but were glass canons. You had to Group to get real stuff done.
With the addition of PVP in a PVE game you ruin the diversity. I'm a HUGE believer that PVP needs to be removed from a PVE game. There is simply no reason to have PVP in a PVE game to begin with. Dueling is cool and I believe WOW got it right with the battle grounds before the days of PVP gear and Arena's. Hell look want the addition of true PVP did to WOW. It is the number one reason WOW was dumbed down. Classes were nerfed based on PVP over and over again.
Simply put, PVP needs to be balanced and if you do that in a PVE game you completely ruin the PVE side of the house. Classes are all cookie cutter with no diversity anymore.
I was just thinking this. PVP pretty much ruins the game if its also PVE. All your so called balancing in mmo's is about the PVP'ers crying that they got beat by another class because they are op. And all this ruins it for players that just want to PVE. These two play styles should have never been mixed. They should be making more PVE only mmo's instead trying to do both. But this is what you get when you try to please everyone. Games like Neocron2 got it right. If you wanted to PVP you had to remove your law enforcement inplant. If you did you could PVP but you got nothing special for doing it. No special PVP only crap.
This entire article feels pretty staged for effect to me. It's not a question in my mind. MMOs have become too easy. The last time I had to write something down or think was in The Secret World and I was doing nightmare instances and quit after the first month anyway.
What you guys should be doing is asking questions that actually need good answers like "How can MMOs be made challenging again?".
If fact Bill or Chris if your reading this at all would you consider a follow up article with that question in mind?
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
At the end of the day the game has to be fun. Solo games usually have a save mechanism that allows you to start over with pretty much no penalty other than time. This allows them to crank up the difficulty without hurting fun too much I remember playing the old Baldur's Gate games where often just charging into battle could get you killed. Fighting some bosses required you to prepare and have a strategy, if you failed you changed up your strategy and tried again, and again and again.
When you make death penalties too severe and then couple that with content that is too difficult you run the risk of frustrating the player. Also instead of keeping the player in game, thinking, engaged and having fun you are driving people to look things up on the internet, or to have somebody carry them. Both of which are not very engaging for the player. If you want people thinking, engaging, and improving you have to balance the content such that the content is difficult without being overly punitive for failure. If you want to make death super punitive and scary, then death has to be rare, which means generally speaking content has to be easier if you want the game to have any kind of mass appeal. You can of course have a hardcore niche game that is super hard with very severe death penalties that will appeal to a very select group of people. However if you want a game to have a larger player base and be difficult, I don't think you are going to accomplish that with severe death penalties. What we have now however is an easy game with no death penalties, which also fails to engage the player but for different reasons.(mainly because you don't have to think about anything).
....Or you could simply have a range of content difficulty/danger. Just as in the real world, there are places you go where you know that you are relatively safe and places you go where you know your really putting yourself at risk. Couple this with a proper risk/reward scale and you can leave it upto each individual player as to how much risk they are comfortable taking on.
They are way too easy for sure, and I have lost interest in playing most of them. Give me a re-skinned early EQ1 with all its corpse runs, hell levels and trains. Now THAT was dangerous and FUN! Sure it was frustrating at times, but it was more than worth it.
Keep in mind thata lot of difficulty in the past was - in many cases - equivalent to mindless timesink and repeting the same stuff over and over again. This had absolutely nothing to do with difficulty. "Modern" games got rid of timesinks, while doing little about difficulty.
There are/were exceptions (not without their own shortcomings, e.g. EvE, pre-f2p Tera, Neocron), but few and far between.
And what is wrong with time sinks? farming mobs, harvesting, travel and the like. i dont understand why people keep referring to time sinks as bad things.
I agree. People seem to think that time sinks meant simply more time in game. That's not necessarily true. It just means that the things you're doing in game take longer. You don't blow through content like you do now.
I agree also. Giving the example of 2 picture puzzles (exactly the same picture). One of 500, the other of 2000 pieces.
This logic of timesinks lessened would be like saying "I like doing puzzles, however I can get the 500 piece one faster. Why would I want to labor for 'x' time longer doing the other"
Question is, do I really like doing puzzles then or is it a timesink to pass the time?
Now take that scenario and imagine you are doing picture puzzles in a big auditorium where other people are also doing picture puzzles, and they also have the same choice. Now add another factor, people who finish first get cookies. Now add another factor where people ridicule you for your choice of puzzle.
It complicates things a bit doesn't it. You like puzzles but you also like cookies. If you do the puzzle that takes less time you can do more easier puzzles and get more cookies. So you are having to make a choice between two things you like puzzles or cookies. People really really like cookies.
The scenario I listed is more like an MMO. If you are playing the same game solo you are not in a race, you don't have to worry about how people feel about your progress.
All those factors are reliant on whether you really care what others think about you and how you play. You may, that's your cross to bear. I'll get the cookies anyway, just not right away like you would. You have your way of thinking, I have mine.
It's not complicated at all. You complicate it by adding all those hurdles you impose upon yourself with what you perceive as enjoyment of the game, not the game itself.
Success is sweet and sweeter if long delayed and gotten through many struggles and defeats. - Amos Bronson Alcott
Note I am not saying you are wrong. Everybody has different opinions that is fine. I'm simply saying there are a variety of factors that come into making a decision, people will weight those factors differently but we seldom have decisions that are only affected by one factor. Now the other factors may be so insignificant to one person that they are irrelevant, but since people are different they will come to a different result based on how they weigh those factors, and that also doesn't make them wrong. If you want a game to appeal to a large number of people you have to consider a lot of factors.
You're correct in that. However, in a saturated market, trying to appeal to the broadest range of audience is often a losing strategy. It's one thing if you have zero competition in a market, but when you are having to fight everybody and thier brother for market share, you are often better trying to narrow your target audience. If you can find an underserved segment of the market and then really focus on the features which that segment is interested and your competition isn't really providing then you can get a very large portion of that segment rather then a very tiny portion of the larger segment.
In other words...even if Pizza is 10 times more popular then Sushi, you are better off being the only Sushi joint in town rather then the 95th Pizza joint.....and trying to serve both Sushi and Pizza, you'll likely not be very good at making either.
I think this is part of the problem that many recent MMO's have faced. Thinking that dressing up essentialy the same style game in a different skin would be enough to differentiate themselves from thier competition and win market share. Players tend to see through that pretty quickly....Why should I play X game, when X game is essentialy the same as the hundred other games out there that I can play (and already have played or am playing).
I'm rarely challenged on "even conned" encounters in MMOs. I have to take on things that devs didn't intent for me to do just to feel like I'm playing on normal or at a pace/intensity that I don't get bored with. But it's not just MMOs, a lot of singleplayer games too are so easy on normal that I need to play on hard.
Would it be so bad if MMOs weren't so easy that any number of random ability presses would win the majority of fights. That you had to devise a plan for certain encounters that could be very different than others? It is as if combat has opened up so that victory and be achieved any number of ways. However because of that, no one way is satisfying and all victories are meaningless.
I disagree somewhat. DAOC was not a gear grinding game and there were positionals you had to use for melee attacks, and casters were rooted while casting, and could be interrupted easily to where they couldn't cast...Tanks actually had a purpose to shield healers and casters.
I never grinded for gear, we bought player made gear and it was the best you could get before the abysmal ToA came along. I quit after that, no idea how the game is now. I just know before ToA, the game was the best RvR/Pvp game I've ever played. No gear grind and each realm had a sense of pride never seen in today's mmorpg's.
You contradicted the part where you say I am wrong. You say the game wasn't a gear grinding game and then stated that you didn't grind for it, you bought it from players. You choosing not to, doesn't mean it wasn't there, and it WAS the first to bring it to the genre, which was my point.
Also, the points you made about PvP did not negate what I mentioned. DaoC brought the individual PvP skill requirement to a minimum compared to previous games. AC1 was by far the highest as no game has ever come close to matching the length some duals lasted in that game, if the skill level was high enough with both people, someone would end up losing due to becoming to tired to continue after over 20 minutes of non-stop fighting.
The term face-rolling came out of DaoC for a reason...and your ending comment shows that no un-biased view can come out of you about that game since it took the developers to create your pride for you...only further proves the statement about how that game started the dumbing down process of the genre.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
I agree with what Chris said about MMO's not ever being all that difficult. However, they seem to generaly have taken a turn from "not all that difficult" to face-roll easy. That definately has diminished my desire to play them. In fact, I really don't anymore.
I have nothing against an easy game when I'm in a mood for that specificaly but I don't want EVERY part of EVERY game to be an easy game.....and therein lies the problem. We need game publishers to understand that they don't all need to follow one formula and target one demographic to make a successfull game. I want to be forced to think as much strategicaly and tacticaly as I do in a good RTS or FPS or even just old fashioned PnP game. I want to be forced to work with other players like in a good team sport. I want worlds that feel dangerous and challenging and exciting and rich...not just cut-out cardboard stages for an amusment park ride.
I have no objection to some games being designed as casual, mindless, easy fun......that's fine. However to have every game feel it has to go that route......that's a tragedy.
You have it backwards they are not targeting "one Demographic" they are targeting all of them. That's why difficulty, immersion, group play and all the rest are set to the lowest common denominator. Casual does not mean "likes easy" it just means "has little time".
My self I casually play hardcore when I can find it
I'm rarely challenged on "even conned" encounters in MMOs. I have to take on things that devs didn't intent for me to do just to feel like I'm playing on normal or at a pace/intensity that I don't get bored with. But it's not just MMOs, a lot of singleplayer games too are so easy on normal that I need to play on hard.
Would it be so bad if MMOs weren't so easy that any number of random ability presses would win the majority of fights. That you had to devise a plan for certain encounters that could be very different than others? It is as if combat has opened up so that victory and be achieved any number of ways. However because of that, no one way is satisfying and all victories are meaningless.
Heh it's not just random ability presses. There is a LOTRO you-tube video out there with some one in vender trash gear fighting even conned mobs with only the auto attack. I'm certain it's not the only game in todays market that has a set of those type of videos.
Anyone with a clear view of the past can see that the dumbing down of MMOs started with DAOC.
Its the game that started the "shiny" for PvP. Presented PvP in a way where it was zerg over skill, button mashing over style, invented the phrase "face-rolling". The game that introduced the gear over skill mindset. The first game to have people create a damage spreadsheet to measure if another player is good enough to join a team.
Its the very game WoW was built upon.
PvP rewards
more people = better
latest tear gear sets required, because without that extra .3% damage you aren't leet enough.
no point to PvP unless there is some kind of shiny reward for doing it.
Hell, you cant get any more dumbed down than a game designed by people saying that players are so stupid we have to separate the races so they wont get confused who the enemy is. And we have to create pride in a faction for the player. THAT is where the dumbing down began, no respect for the players.
I disagree somewhat. DAOC was not a gear grinding game and there were positionals you had to use for melee attacks, and casters were rooted while casting, and could be interrupted easily to where they couldn't cast...Tanks actually had a purpose to shield healers and casters.
I never grinded for gear, we bought player made gear and it was the best you could get before the abysmal ToA came along. I quit after that, no idea how the game is now. I just know before ToA, the game was the best RvR/Pvp game I've ever played. No gear grind and each realm had a sense of pride never seen in today's mmorpg's.
Yep, clearly this guy never played classic, he probably never played SI either as spell calcs didn't become commonly used until late SI.
DAOC is the best pvp mmorpg ever made, even today, some, what, 11 years after its original release?
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy
Read the debate/article, but haven't read comments yet, writings this while the thoughts are fresh in mind
I'm not a hardcore gamer as such - my peak was in WoW 5ish years ago when we were one of the top raiding guilds on that server (no thanks to me) - but I have played RPG's, RTS's, hacknslash etc since the beginning of the 1990's
But that said, yes, many mmo-games feels too easy, too consequence-free (and too many currencies and buy-this-buy-that (but that's a whole other debate))...
After having played the all the Diablo games since D1, I've been thinking that mmo-games to use their lvl'ing system as a sort of inspiration...
What if, instead of - or maybe in addition to - having the standard "PvE", "PvP", PvPRP", PvERP" server, have "Casual Gaming" and "Ultra Hardcore Gaming" servers where there's and actual difference in difficulity (be that reduced hero dam/increased monster health/dam etc - think creative here) !!?
And games where you, like in EQ1(?) and EQ2(long ago - not sure abt this), loose experience, maybe even go down a lvl if you're that close to the limit, when you die...
Games where, IF you fail to keep your gear repaired and it goes to 0 durability, it's actually lost forever or when repaired it either needs rare mats and speciel blacksmith or it can be repaired for many gold AND will end up with reduced stats FOREVER!
But I would also like to see games w/o auction houses, w/o being able to trade gold or send it between accounts to prevent gold sellers and such.
Games where there might be cooldown to health pots, but not a "battle limit" so IF you've finally geared up and filled your stash with 2500 Mega Health Pots - you CAN go try out that dragon alone AND actually be able to finish it off IF you got the skill to do that half an hour battle or something like that... (after 2500 health pots your hero might need a break to go pee though... epic image comes to mind that the excitement of slaying the dragon is quickly overcome by the urge to pee behind that tree overthere :P )
Keep in mind thata lot of difficulty in the past was - in many cases - equivalent to mindless timesink and repeting the same stuff over and over again. This had absolutely nothing to do with difficulty. "Modern" games got rid of timesinks, while doing little about difficulty.
There are/were exceptions (not without their own shortcomings, e.g. EvE, pre-f2p Tera, Neocron), but few and far between.
And what is wrong with time sinks? farming mobs, harvesting, travel and the like. i dont understand why people keep referring to time sinks as bad things.
I agree. People seem to think that time sinks meant simply more time in game. That's not necessarily true. It just means that the things you're doing in game take longer. You don't blow through content like you do now.
I agree also. Giving the example of 2 picture puzzles (exactly the same picture). One of 500, the other of 2000 pieces.
This logic of timesinks lessened would be like saying "I like doing puzzles, however I can get the 500 piece one faster. Why would I want to labor for 'x' time longer doing the other"
Question is, do I really like doing puzzles then or is it a timesink to pass the time?
Now take that scenario and imagine you are doing picture puzzles in a big auditorium where other people are also doing picture puzzles, and they also have the same choice. Now add another factor, people who finish first get cookies. Now add another factor where people ridicule you for your choice of puzzle.
It complicates things a bit doesn't it. You like puzzles but you also like cookies. If you do the puzzle that takes less time you can do more easier puzzles and get more cookies. So you are having to make a choice between two things you like puzzles or cookies. People really really like cookies.
The scenario I listed is more like an MMO. If you are playing the same game solo you are not in a race, you don't have to worry about how people feel about your progress.
Heres another thought. You can just to the puzzle because you like doin the puzzle. Everyone needs a reward for doin things these days. If you like cooking then go buy some damn cookies. Don't do something you could care less about because cookies are the reward. And why are you in a race to complete a puzzle?
This is one of the bigger problems with MMOs today. Things need to be attached to everything. prizes need to be awarded for everything. Even walking into a new zone rewards you with exp. Just do the puzzle because you like to do them. that is the reward. Not the damn cookie.
Comments
This.
While I don't feel that anything in the way of corpse runs, losing 5 levels, and FFA looting are the answer either. Im glad all of those kinds of things are gone.
But those are not difficulty, those are inconveniences.
Challenge comes in the form of content and progression, nowhere else. I really do not have any brilliant ideas about exactly how to go about increasing the difficulty, but that I leave up to the developers.
Progression has become such a joke in modern mmos. Even the game im subscribed to and was even in it's broken 1.0 state, ffxiv, has been simplified to the point where anyone can excel. There are a lot of people talking on these forums about how theyre bored already, and the game is brand new. This problem as I see it is two-fold; 1 being that the game is new, and simply doesn't have the content to go hand in hand with my number 2 point, which is the fact that progression is so blazing fast.
FFXI may have been a very dated game, and like any game it had it's share of problems....but I can't stress enough how much I miss the sense of accomplishment in a level-up because it wasn't handed to me in an hour. There are other things, such content locking through missions and their accomplishments, and Rare/Exclusive items that were extremely hard/annoying to get but were useful across a myriad of jobs....but the biggest one is the progression speed to me.
Btw, I don't personally see content locking as a bad thing at all. It provides the player with something to work for, a goal to achieve. You want to go to X zone because it drops Y piece of gear? Gotta do Z first. I use ffxi as an example because it's the game I played the most, but I still remember how long and hard I had to try to get access to areas like Sky, Sea, etc. And when I could finally run those endgame bosses with my Linkshell I actually felt a sense of accomplishment. Not only Did I have to meet a reqwuirement in the form of levels, but I also had a goal to achieve in clearing content.
-The only sure thing about the future is uncertainty
There is room for all levels of difficulty and challenge. It is a mistake to make a game too narrow in scope. Different games can mean different things to people at different times. Over the spans of years people can and do change between casual, regular and hardcore. People can also change in skill level. In my own experience there has been times in the past 10 years when my skill, ambition and dedication has drastically altered for better or worse. The games that I have been most active in are the ones which have the room to grow.
Having modes like very easy, easy, medium, normal, hard, and very hard have been included in all game genres since the very beggining and for good reason. Sometimes it is good to be able to just experience the content with as little effort as possible, and sometimes it is good to have the kind of challenges which can grind even the most hardcore into dust and it does not always have to be the same. There are soo many good games out that it is simply impossible to climb every mountain you want to and it is something that will only get worse.
If you think MMO's have gotten too easy then you need to play more games. Try staying active in 3-20 different games and there will be no end to the possible ways to find or create challenge.
Not all.
Nothing wrong with easy if that's what the player wants but we should also have hard mode which most devs are actually forgetting. This leads to most mmo's having a short live span, you would think these devs would have caught on by now.
Give us server choices within the same game, different rule sets is all it takes.
Choice is always good.
I'm running through Dark Souls for the third time and although i know what to do somethings are still pretty hard. I've been trying to get to that third bonfire in Anor Londo for the last hour but that freaking black knight want put his bow away and follow me so can get pass that last ledge.
WoW is extremely addictive for the first few years (hence the old phrase "WarCrack").
Then it gets boring once the novelty wears off. It's almost irrelevant as to whether it's hard or easy - it's all about the adventure.
The only 'solution' to regain that sense of wonder is probably new technology, e.g. - Oculus Rift etc.
That too will probably get boring after 5 years or so - then we might want touch senstation transmitted through gloves.
Because i can.
I'm Hopeful For Every Game, Until the Fan Boys Attack My Games. Then the Knives Come Out.
Logic every gamers worst enemy.
You're exactly right.
This is laughable.
I think there is a stigma with the MMO community since the EQ days and the WOW days.
The stigma of When gaming comes first and daily responsibilities comes second. Developers are afraid that the days when People game everyday, losing sleep and outdoor activities would occur again. So they make their games easy to log in, and easy to log out. There is no drive to stay and play, no responsibilities to continue living in their virtual world that they created.
There are other problems as well, one of such is the attention span of their customer base. Anything that takes longer than 10 minutes is a Grind. Grinding is now killing the same monster more than 5 times, walking the same path more than twice. If it takes me more than 1 session of gaming to get 10 levels regardless of where I am is now also a grind.
people nowadays doesn't want to be addicted to their games, they want something like smoking, which they believe they can quite whenever they want. An illusion of that they are in control of their addiction.
Its only When Gamers finally face their realities and see that MMORPG is a long term investment of their time, that's the only time when MMORPG will have level gains that means something. In game death that means something, and have proper Risk vs Death rewards.
MMORPG also have to start facing the facts that Players that play 20 hours a day will advance and be better than players that plays 5 hours a day. Or atleast they should.
Atleast that is my take on the current status of MMO becoming too easy .
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
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Have flask; will travel.
CASUAL should NOT mean EASY! Just because you casually play a game does not mean it should be easy .. Fast to do some content? Sure. Challenging? SHOULD BE..
Why even play a game if you don't read the story and brainlessly collect 100 items to return back for a reward that every other person in the game has? Why would you want every zone easily accessible so that no one can claim to be a hero, where you have something to look forward to or finally be the one that reaches the top? You should be scared to die or there's no thrill.
Best comparison ever: Game of thrones.. Yes you WANT Joffrey to die (Difficulty), but in reality... do you really want him to, when he brings so much content to the show?
An alternate way to explain this with One name: EverQuest.
That is all.
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Former EQ1 Rallos Zek (PvP)
Ascendant Chronei Immortal of Rallos Zek
(Now @ Prexus)
I was just thinking this. PVP pretty much ruins the game if its also PVE. All your so called balancing in mmo's is about the PVP'ers crying that they got beat by another class because they are op. And all this ruins it for players that just want to PVE. These two play styles should have never been mixed. They should be making more PVE only mmo's instead trying to do both. But this is what you get when you try to please everyone. Games like Neocron2 got it right. If you wanted to PVP you had to remove your law enforcement inplant. If you did you could PVP but you got nothing special for doing it. No special PVP only crap.
This entire article feels pretty staged for effect to me. It's not a question in my mind. MMOs have become too easy. The last time I had to write something down or think was in The Secret World and I was doing nightmare instances and quit after the first month anyway.
What you guys should be doing is asking questions that actually need good answers like "How can MMOs be made challenging again?".
If fact Bill or Chris if your reading this at all would you consider a follow up article with that question in mind?
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/....Or you could simply have a range of content difficulty/danger. Just as in the real world, there are places you go where you know that you are relatively safe and places you go where you know your really putting yourself at risk. Couple this with a proper risk/reward scale and you can leave it upto each individual player as to how much risk they are comfortable taking on.
They are way too easy for sure, and I have lost interest in playing most of them. Give me a re-skinned early EQ1 with all its corpse runs, hell levels and trains. Now THAT was dangerous and FUN! Sure it was frustrating at times, but it was more than worth it.
Chris
You're correct in that. However, in a saturated market, trying to appeal to the broadest range of audience is often a losing strategy. It's one thing if you have zero competition in a market, but when you are having to fight everybody and thier brother for market share, you are often better trying to narrow your target audience. If you can find an underserved segment of the market and then really focus on the features which that segment is interested and your competition isn't really providing then you can get a very large portion of that segment rather then a very tiny portion of the larger segment.
In other words...even if Pizza is 10 times more popular then Sushi, you are better off being the only Sushi joint in town rather then the 95th Pizza joint.....and trying to serve both Sushi and Pizza, you'll likely not be very good at making either.
I think this is part of the problem that many recent MMO's have faced. Thinking that dressing up essentialy the same style game in a different skin would be enough to differentiate themselves from thier competition and win market share. Players tend to see through that pretty quickly....Why should I play X game, when X game is essentialy the same as the hundred other games out there that I can play (and already have played or am playing).
I'm rarely challenged on "even conned" encounters in MMOs. I have to take on things that devs didn't intent for me to do just to feel like I'm playing on normal or at a pace/intensity that I don't get bored with. But it's not just MMOs, a lot of singleplayer games too are so easy on normal that I need to play on hard.
Would it be so bad if MMOs weren't so easy that any number of random ability presses would win the majority of fights. That you had to devise a plan for certain encounters that could be very different than others? It is as if combat has opened up so that victory and be achieved any number of ways. However because of that, no one way is satisfying and all victories are meaningless.
You contradicted the part where you say I am wrong. You say the game wasn't a gear grinding game and then stated that you didn't grind for it, you bought it from players. You choosing not to, doesn't mean it wasn't there, and it WAS the first to bring it to the genre, which was my point.
Also, the points you made about PvP did not negate what I mentioned. DaoC brought the individual PvP skill requirement to a minimum compared to previous games. AC1 was by far the highest as no game has ever come close to matching the length some duals lasted in that game, if the skill level was high enough with both people, someone would end up losing due to becoming to tired to continue after over 20 minutes of non-stop fighting.
The term face-rolling came out of DaoC for a reason...and your ending comment shows that no un-biased view can come out of you about that game since it took the developers to create your pride for you...only further proves the statement about how that game started the dumbing down process of the genre.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
You have it backwards they are not targeting "one Demographic" they are targeting all of them. That's why difficulty, immersion, group play and all the rest are set to the lowest common denominator. Casual does not mean "likes easy" it just means "has little time".
My self I casually play hardcore when I can find it
Heh it's not just random ability presses. There is a LOTRO you-tube video out there with some one in vender trash gear fighting even conned mobs with only the auto attack. I'm certain it's not the only game in todays market that has a set of those type of videos.
Yep, clearly this guy never played classic, he probably never played SI either as spell calcs didn't become commonly used until late SI.
DAOC is the best pvp mmorpg ever made, even today, some, what, 11 years after its original release?
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy
Read the debate/article, but haven't read comments yet, writings this while the thoughts are fresh in mind
I'm not a hardcore gamer as such - my peak was in WoW 5ish years ago when we were one of the top raiding guilds on that server (no thanks to me) - but I have played RPG's, RTS's, hacknslash etc since the beginning of the 1990's
But that said, yes, many mmo-games feels too easy, too consequence-free (and too many currencies and buy-this-buy-that (but that's a whole other debate))...
After having played the all the Diablo games since D1, I've been thinking that mmo-games to use their lvl'ing system as a sort of inspiration...
What if, instead of - or maybe in addition to - having the standard "PvE", "PvP", PvPRP", PvERP" server, have "Casual Gaming" and "Ultra Hardcore Gaming" servers where there's and actual difference in difficulity (be that reduced hero dam/increased monster health/dam etc - think creative here) !!?
And games where you, like in EQ1(?) and EQ2(long ago - not sure abt this), loose experience, maybe even go down a lvl if you're that close to the limit, when you die...
Games where, IF you fail to keep your gear repaired and it goes to 0 durability, it's actually lost forever or when repaired it either needs rare mats and speciel blacksmith or it can be repaired for many gold AND will end up with reduced stats FOREVER!
But I would also like to see games w/o auction houses, w/o being able to trade gold or send it between accounts to prevent gold sellers and such.
Games where there might be cooldown to health pots, but not a "battle limit" so IF you've finally geared up and filled your stash with 2500 Mega Health Pots - you CAN go try out that dragon alone AND actually be able to finish it off IF you got the skill to do that half an hour battle or something like that... (after 2500 health pots your hero might need a break to go pee though... epic image comes to mind that the excitement of slaying the dragon is quickly overcome by the urge to pee behind that tree overthere :P )
Anyway, just some thoughts
Heres another thought. You can just to the puzzle because you like doin the puzzle. Everyone needs a reward for doin things these days. If you like cooking then go buy some damn cookies. Don't do something you could care less about because cookies are the reward. And why are you in a race to complete a puzzle?
This is one of the bigger problems with MMOs today. Things need to be attached to everything. prizes need to be awarded for everything. Even walking into a new zone rewards you with exp. Just do the puzzle because you like to do them. that is the reward. Not the damn cookie.